Use One-on-One Meetings to See People's State

I’m a big fan of one-on-one meetings between the manager (or project manager) and the employee. Private meetings provide the manager a chance to see project and personal status in a way that group meetings and email status reports don’t. I wrote an article for Software Development about one-on-ones.

BTW, if you’re using group meetings to share everyone’s status, stop right now. Those meetings are a waste of time, because they’re serial one-on-one meetings. Boring for everyone else, and they don’t elicit the information you as a manager needs to know.

Here’s my recipe for successful one-on-one meetings:

Ask about the employee’s current state. Ask to see evidence of progress, especially if the employee tries to tell you something is 80% done. You both know it’s not 80%. It might be 40% or 90%, but it’s not 80%. Without evidence of progress, you can’t tell what is complete and what’s not complete. Neither can the employee.

Ask if there are obstacles you need to remove.

If you’re the employee’s personnel manager, talk about career development.

If you’re the project manager, ask if the employee what they see about the project. (“What stands out for you, about this project?”) Make sure you’re asking an open-ended question.

Ask the employee if they have issues to discuss.

Esther Derby and I are running a teleclass on how to create successful one-on-ones, starting May 28. The first session is free. Email me if you’d like to join us.

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